1908Founding of the Eugenics Society

Eugenics refers to the study or belief in the improvement of human populations by selective breeding. The Eugenics Education Society was founded in 1908, becoming the Eugenics Society in 1926. Its immediate predecessor - the London Eugenics Record Office - had placed ‘the mental capacity of cross-breeds’ on its agenda in 1905.

The moral condemnation of ‘race crossing’ became one of the key platforms of the Society in Britain during the following half century, a period during which the Society gained notoriety for advocating ‘positive eugenics’ (in which certain groups may be selected for, or prevented from, reproducing).